Call it shock treatment therapy if you want.

I can tell you that I am not going to try to get back into a 2. I will bookmark this and remind myself every day that I am fine… Yes, it is a constant, ongoing fight!
I am also going to show it to my 14 year old daughter as soon as she wakes up to keep her from followinf in my footsteps…She wears a size 0 or 1 and she is 5 foot and 93 pounds.
Thank you Isabelle for coming forward and bringing this problem into the light. It took a lot of courage, people are very critical but I know for a fact that it will help many.

And I have a question: was Isabelle Caro a model? Is that the point of using her image in particular?

If this campaign was aimed solely at halting the use of too-small models on the catwalk, then I think it presents as more of a ‘when to stop dieting’ visual guideline. No. Stop. Anorexia. It is literally written on the billboard as such.

Why why why couldn’t the message have been “Yes. Beautiful” over the top of a gorgeous non-size 0 model such as Doutzen Kroes or even gasp, size 12 Crystal Renn? Isn’t the fashion industry supposed to grow tolerance for using healthier-looking models? Why choose an extremely negative, shock-tactic message instead of a more positive, inspirational visual then?

And *smacking forehead in eureka moment* why don’t governments make a point of legislating FOR size 4 or 6 instead of trying to legislate AGAINST size 0? Wouldn’t including bigger girls on the catwalk be an easier concept to police than trying to ban size 0s?? Imagine runway having a legally-required 6:4:2 ratio of sizes 2, 4 and 8 and an official writing out a fine for any designer that doesn’t meet the ratio. Genius!

Having a woman with anorexia pout coquettishly over her shoulder to the Milanese traffic is not the best way forward. Peace, out.

I imagine a group of people sitting around a table with photographer OlivieriToscani – who, you might remember, was responsible for all of those heinous Benetton ads of the 90′s referencing AIDS to knitwear – plotting out how to create a campaign with an anti-anorexia message that got plenty of media attention and how best to put the client’s name into the image without making it seem like they were going to profit off it somehow.

Then I imagine them casting a roomfull of anorexia sufferers, convincing them somehow that they should overcome their anxiety about their bodies and do this picture for the ‘good of all other anorexia sufferers’ , and then editing down 100 or so shots of the chosen one, Caro, to find that one killer shot that would break our hearts the most.

Then I imagine an advertising agency locating all of the top outdoor sites in Milan so as to have maximum eye-reach during the shows, and placing the ads for maximum impact into any form of print advertising that would be seen in Milan during show week.

Yes, my heart weeps for Caro and her fellow sufferers. But let’s not ignore that there is indeed a lot more going on with this ad, and it IS all about money. NoLita should be bloody ashamed of themselves for trying to position themselves as ‘caring the most’ by presenting this campaign. It IS about creating fear and loathing, and my main concern is that creates a too-brutal precedent to sell brand identity in this manner. I can’t wait to see what the bandwagon delivers. NoLita and their ad people are vultures, plain and simple.

I’ve already seen this justification used by an editor of a women’s magazine (not a high-fashion one; I think it was more of a middle-aged women’s lifestyle magazine like Women’s Weekly) here in Australia. They did a special once-in-a-blue-moon “love your body” issue or whatever which featured models of AVERAGE weight. I’m not sure they were “plus-size” models and you certainly would not have called any of them obese; they probably would have fallen in the upper end of the “normal” BMI range. The editor, addressing the question of why they don’t feature women of all body types in their regular issues instead of making it a once-off special feature, said that the magazine didn’t want to represent body types that are unhealthy, thus encouraging unhealthy lifestyles blah blah blah. That comment troubled me when I first read it – because these women DIDN’T look unhealthy – and it sickens me even more now that I’ve started learning more about fat acceptance.

I have to thank you for this blog. It’s a fascinating read and it has really made me start seeing things differently.

As for Tiziana Maiolo’s comment, which men are these that we have to please? Would these be the straight men that we are trying so hard to win the approval of (so that they will take care of us?) or the gay men who run the fashion mafia? Oh right right right… we must please them all.
fuck you, tiz.

Doing the noun–never heard that one before. I grew up in the era just before Afterschool Specials, though. It makes perfect sense to me.

Rose,
While I agree with you that Isabelle Caro is courageous, I doubt very much she’s on her way to recovery. Not if she weighs 68 poundsl. Phase 1 of recovery from anorexia is to be at your own healthy weight. Not only doesn’t your body work too well when you’re starving, but your brain doesn’t either. Especially your brain. And I remember hearing that a lot of the young women who were in the movie Thin, filmed at a Renfrew Center in Florida, all of whom ahd given consent, regretted it the following year, as their health improved. My own d doesn’t remember a lot of what happened the year she was so sick, and I’m damn glad. She could have given her consent to posing naked then and it would have been exploitation. Exploitation in a good cause, maybe. But still exploitation.

Why does our culture require something with this kind of shock value to make people see and understand?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=484164&in_page_id=1879

It’ll rile you up, but it sure isn’t news.